


Beauty and the Beast

by Thysanotus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Dubious Consent, Friendship, Hogwarts Era, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-25
Updated: 2005-11-25
Packaged: 2018-10-27 07:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thysanotus/pseuds/Thysanotus
Summary: Written forshaychana, who gave me Hermione/Grawp,“language and logic aren’t everything”. The twisted fairytales are my contribution. Right, if anyone wants me, I’ll be hiding with Lils.





	Beauty and the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: PLEASE DO NOT read this if you have a weak stomach, or are a sympathetic vomiter. I WILL NOT be held responsible if anyone throws up onto their computers.  


* * *

Harry and Ron have ridden off to do battle. Hermione twists her lips and pouts at the bathroom mirror. She is left behind, like the princesses in fairytales, imprisoned at the top of a tall tower.  
  
Professor Lupin is with them. Snape has chosen to remain behind, but when Hermione wanders down to his chambers, in search of someone to sit with, she finds them cold and dark, trailing smoke drifting up from the fireplace. Her mouth twists again, and she kicks the bookshelves in sudden anger.  
  
She hates being left behind. Shut out of the world boys can share. Ginny is somewhere in the castle, but Hermione doesn’t want the presence of another girl. A reminder of everything she fails at. More reasons why she is unable to penetrate this realm of brotherly love, of quests and journeys and battles.  
  
Angrily, she stalks down towards Hagrid’s hut. The roof has long since fallen in, twining vines of a lurid emerald crawling through the interior. No one has been down here since Hagrid fell in the first battle. The half giant carried Harry off the battlefield, ignoring the spells and hexes bursting in bright showers of sparks across his back. It was the wasting charm that forced him to yield in the end, passing Harry’s motionless body to Dumbledore before collapsing. Of course, she knows this, sees it, through Ron’s eyes. Tainted with blue, fringed with red hair. She curses damply, sniffing her tears back.  
  
Huddling on the hillside, the dampness of the grey day seeps through her robes and she begins to wish that she’d never come, that she’d stayed moping in the tower, to let her long golden hair down to the first prince who asked nicely. The tears roll silently down her cheeks, running off her chin to spot the thin fabric.  
  
A crashing noise in the bush behind the hut startles her, and she looks up, eyes dark and wide in a white, pinched face.  
  
Grawp emerges, clutching a bundle of flowering shrubs, dirt showering off their exposed roots. She shrinks down, hoping his eyes will glance off her, hoping she can pass as a rock, silent, unmoving, unfeeling. Dead.  
  
The low rasping of his voice reaches her.  
  
“Hermy.”  
  
She looks up, trying to run. He grunts, loping over towards her. Sixteen feet never seemed so tall, she thinks numbly.  
  
He tugs her arm, pulling her up and into the air. Sniffing her all over, his other hand tears off her flimsy robes. Screaming, she struggles, flailing helplessly and rotating in mid-air.  
  
“Grawp, no,” she says firmly. “Put me down, this instant.” It is the voice Ron terms her teacher tone, and she’s practiced it often thinking of McGonagall’s brook-no-nonsense attitude.  
  
He prods her with one huge forefinger. Sickeningly, she swings back and forth, watching the ground undulate underneath her. Her hair whips over her face, the stinging winds hardening her nipples and making her shudder.  
  
He shakes her, swapping grips so that suddenly she is dangling by her leg, left to swing bonelessly as he begins striding towards the forest. Every step sends judders through her, the crash of his feet through the brackeny undergrowth masking her screams.  
  
Her wand lies in the rent garments on the hillside. The first spots of rain begin to fall, fulfilling a promise held most of the day.  
  
\--  
  
In the fairytales Hermione’s mother used to tell her at night, before she went to sleep to dream of unicorns and dragons, of fairies and castles seen though the mist, the handsome prince would always rescue the beautiful princess when danger loomed greatest. She sobs quietly to herself, battered and shrinking in a corner of the rough cave. If there ever were a time for her prince to show up, she thinks, now would be perfect.  
  
Deep down, she knows there is no prince. She is not beautiful, has no masses of long golden hair, no finely sculpted form. Why would anyone want to rescue her? She is Hermione, always there. Always welcoming, always forgiving, more like a sister than a lover, she thinks.  
  
The dim light from the mouth of the cave is suddenly blocked, and Grawp, bent nearly double, pushes into the cave.  
  
“Dry,” he grunts, and plucks her from the corner.  
  
She realises he expects her to dry him off, and does her best with handfuls of withered leaves.  
  
He retrieves the deer from outside the cave, dragging it in by a leg. Hermione staggers backwards, vomit rising in her throat, the harsh bitterness warm and acid. Its head has been neatly severed, belly torn open. Steam is rising from the warm entrails, and the smell of blood on the air reminds Hermione of battles not yet fought. She is sick quietly, into her hands, trying not to draw any more attention to herself.  
  
Hermione tries to ignore the smell of vomit, the molecules drifting in the air bringing the peculiarly bitterly sweet welling back into her mouth. She swallows repeatedly, gulping down the bile, the copious amounts of sweet saliva. Choking back the tears. Dragging a hand across her face, mixing vomit with mucus. She wonders if anyone is looking for her. Has anyone even noticed she is missing yet?  
  
Lost in self-pity, she is taken completely by surprise as Grawp picks her up by the scruff of the neck.  
  
“Pretty,” he thunders, poking her with a finger, and setting her swinging back and forth.  
  
Hermione chokes back the nervous giggles. Covered in tears and vomit, naked and with her hair hanging in matted clumps, she is the furtherest thing from pretty she can imagine.  
  
He drops her, and she falls with a grunt into his lap. Steadying herself, she realises he has an erection. Suppressing a scream, she makes a bolt for the entrance.  
  
\--  
  
Outside, on the freshly muddy ground, rain falling all around, she whirls frantically. Which way is Hogwarts? She can’t tell. The forest grows thickly here; no light penetrates through the canopy. A crash of thunder makes her shiver. She needs shelter, and quickly, if she is not to die of hypothermia.  
  
She starts at a sound behind her. Eyes wild, she realises Grawp is coming behind her, roaring with fury. Bolting into the forest, she runs blindly, lungs gasping for breath, burning, legs aching, until she thuds into something solid, and the collision sends her flying to the ground.  
  
“Hermione!” Ron’s eyes are wide, and his expression shocked. Even his freckles seem indignant. “What are you doing here? And naked!”  
  
Hermione sobs in relief as Ron throws his outer robe round her. “Grawp,” she manages to sob. “H-he took me.”  
  
Ron wraps his arms around her and apparates them both to the safety of the castle gates. His face is familiar, and safe, lined with worry.  
  
As he watches over her in the high narrow infirmary bed, she smiles. “I knew my prince would come,” she whispers.


End file.
